As Bombing Inquiry Proceeds, Obama Offers Measured Praise for F.B.I.

President Obama at a news conference Tuesday, where he discussed developments in the investigation into the Boston Marathon bombings.Credit
Doug Mills/The New York Times

WASHINGTON — President Obama offered measured support on Tuesday for the F.B.I.’s handling of a tip from Russian intelligence about one of the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings but said his administration would “review every step that was taken” to see if more could have been done to prevent the attack.

“Based on what I’ve seen so far, the F.B.I. performed its duties. Department of Homeland Security did what it was supposed to be doing,” Mr. Obama said at a White House news conference. “But this is hard stuff.”

The president suggested that the two brothers accused in the marathon bombings, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, were “self-radicalized” and therefore harder to catch than terrorists who are part of a large network. He said Russian officials had been “very cooperative” since the attack on April 15, as American investigators have traveled to Dagestan in southern Russia to try to reconstruct the activities of Tamerlan during a six-month visit last year.

While Mr. Obama noted that the inquiry was still under way, his remarks appeared to play down the possibility that Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, who died after a police shootout, was trained or directed by a militant group in Russia’s turbulent Caucasus region.

With the core of Al Qaeda in Pakistan weakened, Mr. Obama said, “one of the dangers that we now face are self-radicalized individuals who are already here in the United States.” Plots by such people, he said, “are in some ways more difficult to prevent.”

In a move the president called “standard procedure,” the inspectors general of the intelligence agencies will review how the Russian warning, also sent to the C.I.A., and any other relevant information was shared among agencies. The review will be overseen by the inspector general of the intelligence community, I. Charles McCullough III, and will involve his counterparts at the Department of Justice, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Department of Homeland Security, officials said.

Some members of Congress have suggested that the F.B.I. failed to follow up adequately after receiving a warning in March 2011 about Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his mother, Zubeidat, whom Russian intelligence had reportedly overheard talking about jihad on the telephone. The warning, according to the F.B.I., said that Tamerlan was a follower of radical Islam, had changed drastically and planned to travel to Russia to connect with underground groups.

Asked about a statement by Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, that the country “is going backwards on national security,” Mr. Obama curtly rejected that view. “No. Mr. Graham is not right on this issue, although I’m sure it generated some headlines,” he said.

After the Russian warning, Mr. Obama said: “It’s not as if the F.B.I. did nothing. They not only investigated the older brother; they interviewed the older brother. They concluded that there were no signs that he was engaging in extremist activity.”

F.B.I. investigators continued Tuesday to focus on Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s widow, Katherine Russell, to see whether she played any role in the attack or in helping him and his brother, Dzhokhar, 19, try to cover up their actions, knowingly or unknowingly.

After finding traces of female DNA and a fingerprint on bomb remnants, technicians were checking for matches with Ms. Russell and several other people. Ms. Russell’s lawyer said she “will continue to meet with law enforcement, as she has done for many hours over the past week, and provide as much assistance to the investigation as she can.” But two law enforcement officials said she had stopped cooperating with the authorities in recent days. “Her and her lawyer have now clammed up,” one of the officials said on Tuesday afternoon.

Photo

F.B.I. agents in Boston on April 19, the day a search for one of the suspects paralyzed the city.Credit
Matt Campbell/European Pressphoto Agency

That has heightened the suspicions of investigators, one of the officials said. Meanwhile, the lawyers for Ms. Russell said in a statement that she had been told by officials from the Massachusetts medical examiner’s office that they were prepared to release Mr. Tsarnaev’s remains. The statement said it was Ms. Russell’s “wish that his remains be released to the Tsarnaev family, and we will communicate her wishes to the proper authorities.”

“Katherine and her family continue to be deeply saddened by the harm that has been caused,” the statement said. “They mourn for the loss of life and the terrible consequences these events have had for those who have been injured and for their families.”

In Russia, officials denied news reports that Tamerlan Tsarnaev had been watched during his visit to Dagestan last year.

An error has occurred. Please try again later.

You are already subscribed to this email.

“Tamerlan Tsarnaev was not under the surveillance of the Center for Combating Extremism, or other police agencies,” said Fatina Ubaidatova, a spokeswoman for Dagestan’s Interior Ministry. “He did not commit any offenses in Dagestan, according to our sources. Police do not intervene in law-abiding citizens’ private lives.”

American experts on Russian security measures in Dagestan expressed skepticism about the assertion. Because Mr. Tsarnaev had already been flagged as potentially dangerous, they said it was highly likely that he was watched while in Makhachkala, the regional capital.

In an interview with The New York Times on Tuesday, Mr. Tsarnaev’s parents, Zubeidat and Anzor, rejected reports that their son had been seen meeting with militant suspects in Dagestan. The newspaper Novaya Gazeta, citing an unidentified official in the anti-extremism unit of Dagestan’s Interior Ministry, reported that intelligence services had seen Tamerlan meeting with Mahmoud Mansur Nidal, a militant suspect who was killed on May 19 after a standoff with Russian authorities in Makhachkala.

“I have never heard this name from the mouth of my son,” Mrs. Tsarnaeva said in a telephone interview. “He never met with any Mahmoud, and I don’t know what all this talk is about.”

She said that she was certain that Tamerlan had not connected with underground groups because “he never went out anywhere.” She said he was under scrutiny from his father after he traveled from the United States to join Tamerlan on May 2 — though that was four months after Tamerlan reached Dagestan.

“His father says that he protected him as a hen protects its egg,” she said. “He came, and he was a very open boy and very naïve.”

Both parents said that Tamerlan left Russia in July — without picking up the renewed Russian passport that was his stated reason for visiting Russia — because he was a green card holder and feared jeopardizing his status. Green card holders who stay outside the United States for more than six months are subject to prolonged questioning on return.

Anzor Tsarnaev said he had urged Tamerlan to get American citizenship before deciding whether to move permanently to Russia, because, as he said, “you may change your mind again.”

Mrs. Tsarnaeva also rejected reports that the Russian security agency had wiretapped a phone call in which she and Tamerlan discussed jihad. She said Western reporting on the investigation was full of inaccuracies.

“I am shocked,” she said. “I can see lie after lie. I am very disappointed. I could not imagine that people could be smeared like this without any reason. This subject has never been discussed with my son or anyone else.”

A version of this article appears in print on May 1, 2013, on Page A16 of the New York edition with the headline: As Bombing Inquiry Proceeds, Obama Offers Measured Praise for F.B.I. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe